Drawing on architecture: gender, subjectivity, surface

Abstract

Drawing on Architecture attempts to shift the terms of reference for understanding architectural drawing to include discussions of subjectivity, gender and surface. These issues are, for the most part, elided in standard accounts of drawing which are often based in unstated assumptions of transparency and neutrality. The text is organised to attend to the work of drawing; the processes of making and interpreting. Drawing on Architecture comprises an investigation of five actions or tropes involved in the making of architectural drawings, ranging from the apparently abstract and conceptual to the physicality of actual mark-making. Each action is discussed through the consideration of one or more images (both architectural and otherwise) which play a role in architectural discourse by virtue of their publication in the architectural press. Whilst the images and drawings have been chosen as they appear to foreground the issues and actions at stake, they are not employed simply as illustrations. They never provide 'perfect' examples. Drawing on Architecture is located in the tension between the specific drawing and the more general theoretical concerns. Drawing on Architecture is concerned with speculative interpretations, with understanding how various actions inform the reading of drawings and how subjectivities are constructed through processes of both viewing and making.